


Burning at Both Ends

by Seraina (seraina_doom)



Series: Burnt Out [1]
Category: Mad Max Series (Movies), Mad Max: Fury Road
Genre: Canon Compliant, F/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Sexual Content, Suicidal Thoughts, Terminal Illnesses
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-12
Updated: 2015-06-12
Packaged: 2018-04-04 03:15:18
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,652
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4123683
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/seraina_doom/pseuds/Seraina
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Capable lets him go and he stretches once he’s on top. His back feels like he’s been cramped up inside an engine compartment for days, even though he knows he hasn’t. Just another reminder that he needs to die historic soon or he’ll need to crawl off in a dark corner someplace to go quiet. He’s probably barred from Valhalla now anyway. Maybe he can make it quick by jumping off the rig and going under the wheels. Nice and clean and fast.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Burning at Both Ends

**Author's Note:**

> This is not related to All Thing Shiny and Chrome. I just had this idea and it sort of wrote itself.

Bored. Bored. Bored. He’s so bored. He leans forward just behind Furiosa. “Can I take a turn at the wheel?” He knows the answer. He’s already asked three times and it was always the same.

“No.” The Imperator doesn’t even bother looking at him in the mirror. Even though he’s proven himself to their cause, the Imperator doesn’t want him with the wheel. The idle chatter of the wives beside him is grating on his nerves. At first he was curious to know what the Wives of Immortan spoke of, but it wasn’t war nor engines nor even the Immortan himself. He eases himself out of the back seat and up.

“Where are you going?” Capable looks up at him, a hand on one of the straps of his trousers. He looks down, sees his goggles holding back her red curls. He wants them back, he stole them fair and square from Jiff’s collection, but he won’t touch her like that. She’s too shiny for his filthy hands.

“Piss.” He does have to, but he’s more restless. Sitting idle is wasting time and he can feel his rusty insides seizing up the longer he sits still. He only got half-full before his Blood Bag turned on him but he doesn’t want to fight the feral man for it, not when he’s not going to last long after his betrayal.

The Dag’s white hair falls onto Capable’s shoulder. “What? Off the back of the rig?”

He nods and experimentally tugs away from Capable. “Gotta piss.” Why wouldn’t he piss off the back of the rig? It’s silly to piss off the front.

Capable lets him go and he stretches once he’s on top. His back feels like he’s been cramped up inside an engine compartment for days, even though he knows he hasn’t. Just another reminder that he needs to die historic soon or he’ll need to crawl off in a dark corner someplace to go quiet. He’s probably barred from Valhalla now anyway. Maybe he can make it quick by jumping off the rig and going under the wheels. Nice and clean and fast.

Walking on top of the rig isn’t hard, he’s had enough practice crawling around on moving vehicles enough in his half-life. Once he reaches the crow’s nest, he unzips to relieve himself. Just another thing that hurts, another reminder that he’s all used up inside; running on fumes. 

He feels soaked, the sweats have started and he feels terrible. Usually he’d just press himself to the cold stone of his bunk, but he’s at war right now. He checks his pockets and pulls out the tin of white powder. The sweat makes the powder stick better, which soaks up the sweat. It works. It keeps him from drying up and burning in the desert sun.

Now that he’s powdered, he feels much better. He lets himself drop into the seat in the crow’s nest. He probably isn’t needed right now so he’ll stay here. Out of the way. Out of Capable’s reach.

 

“I need some air.” Capable declares and follow Nux’s path out of the cab. She’s careful and slow trekking across the back of the rig, but she can do it. She’s done it before. She can do anything she wants. Except now that she’s out here, on top of the rig, clinging to one of the few hand-holds and watching him.

He doesn’t seem to notice her as he stretches and relieves himself. She’s never see a man piss before. Immortan Joe had always done that before coming to visit his precious Vault. She crawls closer, the hot metal of the rig digging into her pale knees. She watches in awe how he powders himself with white dust. So it isn’t a natural thing. The War Boy is more like Joe then, human underneath layers of dust.

She clings to the rig and crawls further, pulling herself up beside him on the seat. “Hello.”

His face falls, but he tries to smile for her. Is her attention unwanted? She thought he liked her. Does he not want her around? 

“Not so crowded out here. And I can keep watch. Be useful.” Words spill out of his mouth, but she focuses on his eyes. She knows that look of pain, knows it from her own expression in the mirror and those of her sisters. But he practically sags in the seat, spent like the casing of a bullet, the cast off bits of anti-seed. She knows that War Boys don’t last long. She wonders if she’ll see him die. 

“You’re burning out.” She didn’t mean to say it out loud, but there it is. Out in the open is this Thing that nobody talks about. She remembers having a brother that was given to the War Boys and he never came back either.

He nods, looking at her as if she’s going to hit him.

Instead, she gathers him in her arms, feeling his warmth under her skin. She gets fresh powder on her arms, but it smells clean and dry. He’s stiff as a board under her hands, tense because she knows that the last person that held him with any affection was his mother. And she’s probably long dead. “Relax. I’m not going to hurt you.”

He tried. He really did. But he’s tense like he might spring at any minute, like a tripwire. 

“Are you dying right now?” She knows it’s wrong, but she wants to know. Needs to know if she will watch him snuff out like a candle between pinched fingers. Angrahard’s death is too sudden, but she thinks that if she’s prepared for his she’ll be better at it.

“No, not right now. Soon.” He stares up at her still. 

“Is there anything you want?” She knows there isn’t anything she can really give him. Nothing that he can take to Valhalla with him anyway.

He shakes his head. “I want to go out historic. Traitor is pretty historic though. If I start going soft, will you toss me under the wheels?”

She considers it and nods. “I promise. Anything else?”

He shakes his head again and tries to climb out of her lap. His hand brushes across her breast and she shrieks, pushing him to the floor. He groans and curls up around the elbow that he landed on. “What… what was that for?” 

“You…you touched me!” She’s shaking and can’t stop, gathering her strips of fabric up to cover herself.

“You touched me first!” He backed himself up against the railing, rubbing his sore arm. “Just tried to get up.”

She knows he wasn’t trying to test her. To get a taste or to paw at one of the Immortan’s trophies. This is another Thing that nobody speaks of. “Sorry, sorry. I thought.” She shakes her head. “You don’t even know.”

He grunts and coughs, then turns to spit off the back of the rig. “You touched me first.” He insists as his blue, blue eyes meet hers again. “Several times. And you touched me in the cab, fell asleep on me.”

“Yes, I did.” And it clicks in her head that he really doesn’t know. He’s never been near a woman. Imperator Furiosa is an anomaly, strange and foreign and he’s sure she doesn’t let any old War Boy grope at her either. “Don’t touch me here.” She cups her breasts to demonstrate.

“Oh. Makes sense. Need to save the milk for sprogs.” He nods, reasoning it out like it is just that simple.

“That’s not it at all!” She wants to shake this boy, this stupid creature. But she knows it isn’t his fault. It is Joe’s fault. Joe made him like this, made them all like this. Stupid and ignorant so they would ignore their true needs and serve him religiously.

“Then what is it? I’m not like you. I’m… I’m different. I’m a War Boy. I make death, crave it. You’re the opposite. You make life.” He stands up and braces one hand on the ceiling and closes his eyes, feeling the wind whip past him.

 

No wonder breeders weren’t allowed near War Boys. This one is maddening. She’s really chrome though, but that doesn’t make up for her touching and not-wanting-to-be-touched nonsense. He needs to stand up again, stretch himself out and feel the wind. It seems to be calming his fevered skin and his mind is finally starting to slow down. He’s out of chrome. It’s no longer in his system. He’s low on high-octane crazy blood, but that’s okay. She’s going to throw him under the wheels if he goes soft. But now he just needs to collapse in a heap until his body decides he can move again. But she’s still here and staring at him.

He’s been stared at enough that he doesn’t mind it. But now she’s looking at him like she expects something from him. He doesn’t have much, but he’ll let her rifle through his pockets. He drops and tucks himself underneath the seat, the old tarp keeps the metal from burning his skin and it is softer than his stone bunk at the Citadel. He pulls his pants off and his boots and tosses the canvas things to her. “Here. Take what you want.”

 

She can’t move at first. She doesn’t know what he wants. What he’s telling her to do. She bends down and picks up the heavy canvas. She slips the pants over her legs but they are far too long. She takes them off and picks through the pockets. There’s just bits of wire and junk in there. Nothing she can use. She drops down to the floor and holds the pants in front of him. “Here. You don’t have anything I need.”

The pants get taken from her and she watches him roll them and stuff them under his head. It is cooler in the shade of the seat and she shimmies halfway under with him. “What are you doing?”

What is she doing? A Naked Man is cornered in a small space and she willingly climbs in after him? But Nux isn’t Joe. “It’s cooler down here.” And it is. She watches his face for any changes in his mood.

He shifts over, giving her more room and she slides right up against him. In the shadow it’s hard to tell if he’s powered everywhere, but she’s sure he is. The skin of his legs are rough like his arms. He’s warm like the metal underneath, like he’s been left out in the sun all day. But the sun is setting and the wind that blows is much colder.

“I’m not made for breeding.” He whispers even as his fingers curl around the stray strands of his hair.

She runs her hand along his side and down between his legs. Her fingers settle around the fleshy bit that rests there. “Looks like it to me.” She squeezes and he inhales sharply and shakes his head.

“No…” he curls up around himself. He’s trapping her hand there too.

“Don’t War Boys rut?” She rests her forehead against his. He feels like the sun. From this close, she can hear his wheezing.

“Only in a doof or in the pits where it’s too hard to tell. Get caught in the bunks and get sent to the Mechanic. Gets cut off. No more rutting.” He closes his eyes. He’s shaking and tense.

She lets him go and tugs her hand back. His hips roll forward a little and he whimpers at the lost contact. Or maybe something else. She imagines what it’s like to be a War Boy but can’t. She presses closer to him. She takes his hand and puts it on her hip. “Nobody’s going to cut you here.” The space is cramped and they’re both sweating in the night air. She backs out of the space underneath the bench and pulls him with her. She rests her head on his shoulder and wraps her arm around his chest. 

She wonders if he can feel her heart pounding in her chest. She’s never felt so free as she does now, with Nux beside her. It feels like one more twist of the knife in Joe’s saggy guts. She leans over and presses her lips to Nux’s cheek, lingering there. His eyes meet hers, still glazed with fever. “What was that for?”

 

He’s dizzy and hot and hurt and each of her touches makes him feel strange. She’s got her leg over him now and her mouth on his jaw and he can’t get enough air. He’s dying surely. He’s going soft on his insides. He closes his eyes to wait for her to haul him up and throw him under the wheels. It won’t be Valhalla, but he will be free of this softness. This death.

“Immortan is not a god.” She mutters against his skin. He’s sweating through his powder again but she’s on top of him now, straddling him. Her fingers trace the lines of his V8 and he feels like he’s burning. “He denied us both freedom.” His mind is slow and sluggish, he can’t figure out her words.

He can’t control his body anymore. He’s dying soft and she still hasn’t tossed him under the wheels. Maybe she never intended to. His hips buck up on their own and he grabs her by the wrists. “What are you doing to me?” He’s never felt like this before, not even when he’s driving. Not even when the Immortan himself sprayed him chrome. She’s driving him mad.

“We’re both burnt out. Let’s start again free. Free of him and his lies.” She shifts back and his pisser is throbbing, he’s uncomfortable and he feels like he’s going to explode; he’ll just go off like a lancer’s tip.

“How?” His question comes out strangled. He wants… something, but he’s never had these feelings before. Her touching makes him feel like he’s dying and kami-crazy alive at the same time.

She leans down and presses her lips to his. Mouths open and he doesn’t need to breathe. He forgets. He gasps for air and she’s still above him. “Rut with me.” She’s not saying it right, or maybe he’s got it wrong in his head. Right now he’ll do anything she tells him. Anything she wants. He nods. “Y-yeah.”

She grabs him again and his world is just warm and wet and she’s kissing him. Kissing in the word. Mouths together, her hands on him, his on her. His hips move again and she pins him to the floor. “Like this.” She slides up and down him. Up. Down. He can’t believe she’s real. He feels like he’s speeding off to Valhalla. Maybe she had tossed him under the wheels after all!

 

She can feel his energy through her, he’s a bomb about to go off. He’s a tripwire and she’s the bomb. Linked together at the hips. She can’t believe how different it is with Nux. He won’t move without her, too scared to break. He’s been denied as much as she has and for a moment, she hopes Immortan can see her through his binoculars, riding this War Boy. She feels him shudder beneath her and he stills. Has she burned out the last of his fire?

“Nux?” She puts her hands on his face and his blue eyes stare into hers. 

“Threw me… under the wheels?”

She laughs and kisses him again. “No. I didn’t throw you under the wheels. You’re not dying. Not any more than usual, anyway.” She pulls away, breaking their connection and lays beside him. She presses her wrist to his forehead. “Your fever broke.”

“I broke, I think.” He mumbles and his arm wraps around her waist.

She drags the tarp around them both so they can sleep, at least a little bit.


End file.
